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Session Notes
First Session Players attend ball, socialize twice, and thwart an assassination attempt on the Queen of Norley. On the bodies of the would be assassins they found two letters. One merely reading ARCHMAGE and the other being in an archaic version of the Nor language. And also a map of the subbasements. Second Session Players have a brief spat with each other, investigate the note in archaic Nor. Their attempts with NPCs yield that the script resembles official documents from the time of King Leon and Saint Chelone and that the turn of phrase is of a similar age... when they asked Professor Anthony Veil to translate he could only translate a small portion of the text. Unsatisfied with this uncertainty, they used a magic spell and learned the true contents of the letter - which leads them to believe Saint Chelone was targeted for her race... and that Larka was as well, Kastion then mentions he thinks that the why she was a victim of an attempted assassination is currently less important than stopping it from happening again, the party then decide to look around for how the assassins got into the part to begin with. Finding a secret passage to the gardens. In the garden they speak with the gardener Adaia who warns them not to trust Rhazien and Zazna - and tells them that if they can get the storage chest working again they're welcome to the contents, and that there's some documents inside that might interest them. They fix the chest and receive another note and a few items. They then run into another would be assassin, a paranoid "guest" who is easily suggested into leading them through the subbasements - he is immediately killed by living armor. The party manages to wipe out the suits of armor using what appears to be an acid pit, open a chest and find a corroded sword. They use the sword to open the magicked door and continue onto the next level. Third Session They find themselves in the next subbasement and find several chests which hold many useful items including: an everchanging map for something called the Temple of Tricks, documents relating to matters of state and a necromancy ritual clearly stolen from the Ester, fought a mimic and in the actual chest it had a beautiful diadem. Descending further they enter a cavern, where they are assailed by a trap of fire - a successful perception check by Aderyn let them pass unharmed by realizing the fire was fake. They kill several skeletons and meet a Spirit who is bound to the place by foul magic. Speaking to her they help her discover she is Saint Chelone. With her memory restored she can leave the dungeon and with a final warning not to trust the Archmage she dissipates. Journeying onward they find an altar that seems to have been essentially melted, surrounded by scorch marks and deep scars in the stone. They learn nothing from this room. They then find an altar, and realize it is imbued with Good energy and hurts anyone not of good alignment - which aids them when they throw the priestess Arasinya into it to keep the Phoenix from consuming her entirely. They leave her there promising to return, the party enters a new room where there's a mysterious woman fighting a Beholder. Fourth Session Fighting and defeating the beholder, they are introduced to Cassia who claims she's here to rescue Erwin and doesn't have time to stick around and chat. Larka seems somewhat hostile towards the woman for reasons she won't disclose. They meet a suspicious chained man who they leave alone after tricking him into revealing info about a light puzzle, and find two sarcophagi - written with Palish and Nor script. After placing the corroded sword and the diadem in it - it restores both to their former glory. They lure a gelatinous cube into the room with the man, go down into a chamber and find a lich - promptly leave and go to the other room where they find a dragon. They kill said dragon, save another dragon who turned out to be Prince Erwin. They take a long rest. Fifth Session Ready to fight the Lich they go into the chamber and discover the Lich is Fiya Lockwood - former Queen of Norley and also its former Archmage, and the second wife of King Leon. She hated Chelone and Paleah, and claims to have manipulated King Tybalt into declaring the bloody conquest of Paleah - known as the Palish Terrors. She gets her ass summarily kicked and has her eyes clawed out by Aderyn, they find various trinkets on her - including a keystone - but her phylactery is nowhere to be found. Discovering the water surrounding Fiya would save Arasinya they brought her to it and it calmed the Phoenix's rage - they convince the Phoenix to allow Arasinya to speak with Anthony and Xsayathiya. The three of them go off to save Inaintet's soul - perhaps the players will cross them again? The players return to the party and find a grave that cannot be messed with, they part ways with Larka and decide to continue investigating the Temple of Tricks because something is most certainly Afoot. Sixth Session Kastion fucks off because this is too much for him. They fight bears that are bleeding an oozing blackness that is more powerful than anything they'd ever seen or studied, but in a very BAD way. There doesn't seem to be a beneficial use for it. And meet Hezdal Steelvice, who helped them with the bears. Continuing onward they find a river that has the same blackness flowing upstream - crossing through before it reaches their crossing point they manage to avoid getting effected by it. They find a ruined temple surrounded by a red, crackling barrier which the Lich's keystone destroys. A portal appears which Hezdal goes through immediately, the others are most hesitant but eventually enter it. And find some supplicants with the same bleeding going on in their eyes, in their midst is a demon that is resistant or outright immune to nearly everything they can throw at it. But eventually they beat them all. There's ornate paneling on the walls that details a heretical tale of Eldione casting an evil god from herself and fighting them for eternity and thus mostly ignoring the prayers of the people of Karnath - something that is blasphemous because OF COURSE Eldione could do both! They find a room with beds and trunks full of clothes specifically tailored for them - with the insignia of House Arralis. Which Aderyn realized was strange because House Arralis only came into power 30 years prior. Continuing onward, they meet Cat - a floating, talking cat who is very sarcastic. Seventh Session They continue down a passage and discover three rooms behind rosewood doors, with engravings of: a woman covered in thorns, a rose bush and a lion. On either end of the hall there are tapestries - on the nearest one it is a dagger beneath a mask, on the furthest a dagger in front of a mask. Thorny brambles grow up along the sides. Entering the first room they find a tapestry depicting a woman praying surrounded by brambles. In the second a tapestry depicting a hand reaching out towards the rising woman. In the third.. they find a chimera oozing black blood but still somewhat sentient. It tells them, when asked about the black goo, that the "blood went bad" and blames the Star Elves - but gives no further details. They leave before it fights them and continue down the hallway where they eventually contact three minions - Todd successfully persuades the one in control not to fight and subsequently learns that Cat may not be trustworthy at all. After tricking the minion into handing over his control rod, they tie him up and journey onward - ignoring the Medusa in the room over and traveling to a room where Aderyn cannot fly. They solve a puzzle and the session ends. Eighth Session They find a room with a campfire in it, move into another room with a couatl fountain, in the hallway there's so much black writing on the walls to make it illegible - looking in it shows a distorted horrifying reflection that repeats what you say backwards and laughs if asked about House Arralis or the Trickster. They find a mask on a corpse and when they use it to look into the mirror. It works! It shows their normal reflection and it will answer some questions... while controlling your body. They move on. Enter a room with a mirror on a dais surrounded by overgrown flowers, and see a scene happen with a star elf gardening - she speaks about someone named Taruva to another person, they discuss a ritual, an explosion occurs and there's painful screaming and a voice that shouts "THAT'S NOT FOR YOU!" and five shadow demons appear. LORE So ADERYN would know that dagger's are often used to represent Kantira, the Goddess of Mercy - who was killed by human nobles in Rosesea with one at one point. Since nobody has even HEARD of the Trickster in modern day it's safe to say she has not association with them Kantira is a minor goddess whose major associations are: Emjir, god of funerals AKA her husband. Eldione the creator god, and Miora goddess of misery. STAR ELVES: Aderyn would know that Star Elves once ruled Karnath THOUSANDS of years ago and their "marvels" dot the landscape as monster-filled ruins with haywire magitek and such. Their entire civilization was seemingly destroyed all at once in a mass cataclysmic event. Their ruins are full of lots and lots of valuable items, like fancy magical items and gold and shiny things. So some people make their lives as treasure hunters braving these ruins for the monz. Aderyn also knows that in the Saluyara saga none of the Star Elf ruins were touched by Inaintet's destruction - despite it being a far reaching calamity. she would also know they spoke and read a language that even with magic to decipher seems foreign and somewhat bizarre and a lot of Star Elf artifacts refers to godly intervention on a supreme level like - how the gods are chatty in this day in age. And are more active now So imagine a god kajiggling your dick constantly the Gods were just THERE they practically lived with the Star Elves, possibly in a sort of equal partnership. Lucky would know: that wild magic started existing when the Star Elves disappeared it's a direct result of their vanishing and the destruction that followed, though he doesn't know WHY or HOW "-Taruva says that the final preparations for the ritual are well under way, the Gods will be more than pleased to be given to our world." "I don't know, I was looking over the sigils and it's... it's too much. Too much raw magic for the Pathways to contain. It'll destroy everything." "I'm sure that the Gods would never-" Ninth Session The Shadow Demons kill Cat, but she got better. They realize the gooey mirror's magic is can give you spellslots back, they recharge it with magical spell and it becomes a portal - walking through causes cold damage but they all make it through. They exit out into a sandstone room with ornate pillars along with colored flame torches flickering dim-light. In the center is a lever, pulling it starts a countdown. Panic ensues, it's glorious They wait it out and boom they're free to continue, God gets yelled at. They take a long rest. And Hezdal eats the black goo, he gets VERY sick immediately and they manage to purge it from him via vomiting. They enter a room with an altar and a hologram of Rhazien and Zazna in ancient Evunasi style clothing.... the hologram is degraded and ancient, wearing the magic mask does little good and there's no way to recharge it. The continue on into a black room with swaying platforms, every step they take it difficult and when they make it to a chest it turns out it was just to fuck with them. End session. Tenth Session Players meet new PC Faustus - they all chat and joke around a bit. Find proof that Cat was one humanoid and also was forcibly turned into a Cat. Hezdal cried. Solve several puzzles, get some useless weapons, do some jokes. Nothing important happened, it was all hastily added filler to delay boss battle. Eleventh Session A long series of pointless, hastily added puzzles - they meet Mac a Viride necromancer and fight him - they eventually stop and decide to join forces, they forcibly transform Cat back into her humanoid form, an Eshte named Katsi who served as Lys' acolyte and closest companion, she recounts her story of being there when Lys slayed Inaintet and Kholin's rage at the fact she was then turned into a cat and tied to the realm of the Trickster. They continue on and find a room with a massive fountain made of pure black stone and inscribed with pulsating, sickly purple runes. The water flowing out of it is the black goo you've come to realize is tainted ichor. It welcomes you and introduces itself as the Font of the Trickster - it has been experimenting with ichor for Sagas trying to find a way to give form to the formless... to pull Lys back to the realm of the living, not as one of the walking corpses of the Ester but as a true living, breathing creature. Something that has never been possible. And it has decided it needs the blood of a Star Elf, and since it can't leave the Realm of the Trickster it wants to send you on this task, in return it will grant you your deepest desires. We end the session there. Twelfth Session You refuse and fight and after a long, arduous battle emerge victorious. Reality superimposes itself around you and as you fade you see Katsi slowly disintegrate along with the Font - she is likely dead - and a voice say "It didn't have to be this way. I'm supposed to be dead" very faintly as you pass out. When you wake up you're utterly exhausted and find yourself in a swamp, there's a village nearby that proclaims itself Oothek. You venture in, find an inn and make a beeline for it - you are greeted by a bizarre looking halfling. Dark skin with black eyes full of stars, her dark hair is also full of stars and she seems to immediately recognize the wild magic touching Lucky. She and Lucky strike up an immediate rapport - she introduces herself as Stella Mira a former wild magic who uses a nullification necklace that she created with help from resident abjurer Talaphae Dasheti - it causes her to be completely impervious to magic and also incapable of casting it, rendering her wild magic useless. Everyone takes a bath and retires for the night. 13th Session You wake up, level up, go to the tavern, eat food, flirt and chat with everyone and find a job. 14th Session Kill some rats, get paid, go to Okone's Perch, get mad about the state of the library - try to fix it, hit a roadblock and let it go for the time being. Gamble, get pets, get invited by the Head Cleric of Eldione to go free the Phoenix and Inaintet... potentially suggesting you assassinate Arasinya as well. Pray to gods for answers, get advice and a cryptic answer from Eldione (and a phoenix feather), accept the job and get paid.